BOSTON – Novomer Inc. announced plans to open a new innovation center in Rochester, New York. The facility — named the Novomer Innovation Center — is designed to meet the expanding demands of the company's growing biobased chemicals business.

All equipment, production assets and employees will be transferred from the existing product development and pilot operations location to the new 26,000-square-foot facility. Novomer will occupy the leased space in December, where it is currently undertaking significant renovations and improvements. The larger facility will house technology research, product development activities and a COEth Process demonstration unit to make customer samples for a variety of products. "The space provides room for collaboration and the capability to manufacture products at a larger scale to better service our development efforts and customer needs," said Jim Mahoney, CEO of Novomer.

"This move reflects our rapid growth, which has resulted in the need for additional space to develop new innovative products, meet customer demands for product testing and collaborate with partners," explained Mahoney. The location, just minutes from the Greater Rochester International Airport, will also be more convenient for partners, customers and vendors to visit Novomer's technical facilities. Novomer is expected to employ about 60 chemists, engineers, lab technicians and other personnel at the new facility.

In July, Novomer announced the relocation of its headquarters to One Bowdoin Square in Boston. In addition to corporate offices, the new headquarters space will house business development and global project management activities.

Novomer is commercializing a family of competitively priced biobased chemicals and high-performance polymers from ethanol and low-cost carbon monoxide. With its proprietary catalyst and process technology, the Novomer COEth Process enables these renewable feedstocks to be cost competitively transformed into chemical building blocks for a wide variety of industrial products and applications.

Effective in early 2018, the new address of the Novomer Innovation Center will be 297 Buell Road, Rochester, NY 14624.